(Bloomberg) — British police are investigating the attack of a Hong Kong protester inside the grounds of a Chinese consulate, which took place as President Xi Jinping opened a key Communist Party’s congress in Beijing.
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Greater Manchester Police said in a statement that a man was dragged inside the gates of the Chinese consulate in Manchester on Sunday, after some 30 to 40 people had gathered outside the building to stage a peaceful protest. Shortly before 4 p.m., one man was dragged inside the consulate grounds and assaulted, before being removed by a police officer, it added.
Assistant chief constable Rob Potts said what had begun as a “peaceful protest” had escalated into a “hostile situation.”
“I can assure the public that all viable avenues will be explored to bring to justice anyone we believe is culpable,” he added. The city’s police force is now liaising with national policing and diplomatic partners.
Videos posted to Twitter of the exchange showed protesters gathered in front of signs criticizing the ruling Chinese Communist Party and Xi, who is expected to clinch a precedent-busting third term in office this weekend. One man is then dragged into the consulate, where four men stand over and beat him, as a bystander wearing a beret and black jacket observes at close range. Police said the victim was in his 30s, had several physical injuries and stayed overnight in hospital for treatment.
The Hong Kong Indigenous Defence Force, a political group that had called for protesters to join the demonstration in the days leading up to the event, decried the attack in an online post. It also quoted the Hong Konger who was beaten as saying: “This attack in broad daylight is beyond reason.”
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said he wasn’t aware of the incident at a regular news briefing in Beijing on Monday. “The Chinese embassy and consulates in the UK always abide by the law of their host country,” he added.
Questions on the incident were omitted from the foreign ministry’s briefing transcript and appeared to have been scrubbed from China’s heavily censored internet, with searches for Wang’s response returning no results on Monday.
In Britain, there were growing calls on Monday to identify and hold to account the attackers. Conservative lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith demanded on Twitter that “those responsible are sent home to China,” while British politician Andrew Gwynne said the British government “needs to urgently call the Chinese Ambassador in to answer for this act of violence.”
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Liz Truss described the incident as “deeply concerning.”
Nathan Law, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist living in self-imposed exiled in the UK, wrote on Twitter: “If the consulate staff responsible are not held accountable, Hongkongers would live in fear of being kidnapped and persecuted.”
The UK has seen an influx of Hong Kongers since opening a pathway to citizenship in January 2021, after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the former British colony. Some 140,500 Hong Kongers have applied for the program.
On Sunday, Xi declared Beijing had successfully restored order to Hong Kong, saying it was now ruled solely by patriots. Scores of the city’s former opposition leaders have been jailed under the security law.
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